On Mon, 2 Feb 2004 20:42:50 +1100 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > On Mon, 2 Feb 2004 19:58:15 +1100 > Erik de Castro Lopo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > [ ... ] > > As good as OO is for files, the idea the everything should be an object > > in a class hierarchy is just as wrong. > > I agree with you and from what I read of Stroustrup, he > would agree with you too. > > > Personally I think Stroustrup has done more damage to the computer > > industry that Bill Gates. > > Which makes that statement ludicrous. Holy hyperbole batman.
Maybe comparing him to Bill Gates was a little unfair. I therefore nominate him as the person who has done the third most damage to the computer industry, after Bill Gates and Microsoft. However, the benchmarketing below would make any microsoft marketroid proud. > Have a look at these simple examples in C and C++, > and tell me that C++ is not worth it: > > http://www.research.att.com/~bs/new_learning.pdf That is one of the funniest things I have read in a long time. The opening sentence "We want to make our programs easy to write, correct, maintainable and acceptably efficient." from the main architect of C++. The irony is astounding. The toy example programs might be fine for C++ but the C programs are good candidates for the Strawman of the Year award. In the first program he uses scanf() which most experienced C coders ignore; fgets() is a far better choice. He then tries to replace scanf with some complete garbage. He then goes on to an equally bogus efficiency example. Last time someone showed me stupid speed comparisons like this, I disassembled the C and C++ binaries to prove that g++ was inlining non-inline functions while gcc was not. By adding the C99 inline directive to the C program the two programs compiled to almost identical binaries with zero measurable performance difference. As for the comment on Stroustrup, I will happily repeat it. I first learnt C++ in about 1990 but grew disillusion by it by about 1994. I do however, still use for the rare task where C++ actually fits the problem better than C or Python. The constant changes to the C++ language standard, caused millions of man hours spent chasing the C++ standards and the constantly changing ABIs caused similar amounts of time recompiling and debugging code and sold almost as many disk drives as windows. The C++ zealotry that was so prevalent through much of the nineties caused endless re-writes of perfectly good, working C code. A generation of coders had the bogus class heirarchy examples (that everybody now realises were bogus) shoved down their throats. Not to mention the countless hundreds of millions of hours have been spent trying to decipher the meanings of some of the more convoluted gunk that C++ allows and even encourages. A really good example of how messed up C++ is, is that backbone of the C++ cannon; iostream (attributable to Stroustrup I believe). Iostream is so ugly that even its parent couldn't love it. It does however serve as a glowing example of the abuse of operater overloading. All in all, I believe that C++ was released to the public a good decade before it was ready for public consumption. Erik -- +-----------------------------------------------------------+ Erik de Castro Lopo [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Yes it's valid) +-----------------------------------------------------------+ "If you are going to SCO to license superior driver technology, you need to reevaluate your product." -- Comment about SUN and SCO on Linuxtoday.com -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
